To Love and to Kill (17 page)

Josh liked what he was hearing. He thanked Emilia.

“I'm not dumb, I know what I'm doing,” Emilia said. “Keep your friends close—but keep your
enemies
closer.”

CHAPTER 44

AS JOSH AND
Emilia continued to talk while Josh was behind bars, they came to the conclusion that Heather was—and always would be—a nuisance in their lives. She would never go away on her own. There was no getting around this problem. If Josh was ever going to be able to see his kids regularly and move on with his life without interruption from Heather, something was going to have to be done. The first step, though, was getting Josh out of jail so he and Emilia could work together on this task—most important, perhaps, without anyone else listening to them on the other end of the line.

During one phone call, Josh explained to Emilia how he had just spoken to Heather. She sounded upset, he said. He mimicked her crying to him over the phone, and he and Emilia shared a good laugh at Heather's expense.

“Listen, I want you to just go along with whatever she says,” Josh explained to Emilia. He had a scheming, devious sound to his voice, as though he had some sort of plot developing to fix everything.

Josh talked about getting out of jail the following day, January 7, and taking the day after that off from work and going “straight to the state attorney's office” with Heather. “She's gonna tell them that she lied about me.” Based on the last phone call he had with Heather, Josh was under the impression Heather was prepared to drop any charges.

“You know what,” Emilia said, “they ain't gonna drop the case. 'Cause the state done picked it up, no matter what.” There was a sense here that Emilia liked the idea of Josh being behind bars right now. At least there, she knew where he was at all times and he wasn't sharing his bed with anyone else.

They spoke about the prosecutor still pushing forward with a case against Josh, even though Heather might drop the charges.

Emilia told him not to worry. She was seeing Heather the following day and would find out exactly what was going on.

“I got this,” Emilia said. “You leave it to me from here on out, do you
hear
me?” Emilia sounded pissed. She had taken control and wanted Josh to trust that she could handle Heather. And she also wanted Josh to keep his damn nose out of it. The more he meddled and tried to control Heather, the more he mucked things up and made Heather suspicious that something else was happening.

“All right,” Josh said.

“I'm serious!” Emilia yelled.

“Okay. Don't get all [crazy].”

“I'm not. I am just
tired
of you telling me how this is gonna happen. I'll play along like I've
been
playing along. . . . I'm gonna have to, because you seem like too much of a
pussy
to do shit.”

Their time was up. The call was over.

CHAPTER 45

THE NEXT MORNING,
Josh called his mother, Judy Chandler.

“Momma?”

“Yeah, baby ... it's me.”

Something was up. Josh was crying. He didn't say anything.

“What's wrong?” Judy pressed.

Josh still wouldn't speak.

“You okay, baby? What's wrong?” Judy could hear her son whimpering. “You there?”

“Yup, Momma, I'm here.” Josh sounded like a little boy, as if Judy had scolded him and he was coming back to apologize.

“Oh, God, you got some bad news, don't you?” Judy asked.

“Yeah . . . ,” Josh said through tears.

“Oh, God . . . here's Lily.” Judy handed the phone to Emilia, whom she called by her nickname.

“What's wrong?” Emilia asked.

Josh was breathing heavily, crying and sniffling. He could barely speak. In a whisper, he said, “I gotta stay here. . . .”

“What? No bond?”

“No.”

Josh had gone to court and faced the judge, who indicated Josh wouldn't be getting out that day or the next, or even the following week. He was going to be spending forty-five days in the can and might end up with even more time. Walking into court, Josh assumed he was going home that morning. The news was devastating.

“They said I'll go back to court February ninth.” That was one month and a day away. He had no idea what would happen on that date, but he would face the judge again. For all Josh knew, he explained to Emilia, he could get some serious time in the state pen.

“Are you serious?” Emilia asked. She sounded both livid and confused.

“Yup,” Josh answered, crying even harder.

The line went quiet for a time. Then Josh said, “Oh, my God, I should have killed that bitch.”

CHAPTER 46

A FEW DAYS
later, after some time reflecting on things, Josh was back to his normal self, the blow of being locked up for a month (at the least) finally not throbbing any longer. He had accepted his sentence. He had that warrior tone to his voice again. Revenge was on Josh's mind now. He had been betrayed. He was ready and willing to accept punishment, but there would be a price.

He encouraged Emilia to stay close to Heather.

“I got this,” she said. “You don't worry.”

“I'm gonna leave it in your hands.”

Heather and Emilia were communicating just about every day by now. Emilia was helping with the kids and playing it cool with Heather, being her friend.

Josh told Emilia how he was “fixing” to “do ten years” for the gun charge—years stripped from his life that he, of course, blamed Heather for. He had just spoken to Heather himself, Josh said, and she now promised him that she was definitely going to drop the charges, but she had done nothing to support that claim just yet.

“No, you're not,” Emilia said about the ten years. She sounded certain.

Their time was up. Josh said he'd call again soon.

CHAPTER 47

EMILIA AND HEATHER
were driving back from Ocala. Emilia had taken Heather food shopping and was planning on watching Heather's kids that night when Heather went off to work. Heather drove. When they got to Emilia's house, Heather started crying.

Emilia asked what was wrong.

It was Ben McCollum, Heather explained. She was sad that it hadn't worked out. Heather liked Ben a lot and realized that she loved him and it was real. She knew he was good for her. But she'd gone and screwed it all up, and now Ben wanted nothing to do with her, even with Josh out of the picture.

Emilia asked why they broke up. For Emilia's benefit, Heather and Ben together would be the ideal scenario; it would take Heather out of the picture—sort of—and allow Emilia to have Josh to herself without having to worry about Josh and Heather getting back together.

“'Cause he said if I dropped those charges against Josh, he didn't want to have nothing to do with me. He didn't want to be looking over his shoulder no more and it wasn't fair to him.”

Heather explained that although they had broken up back in December before she and Josh married, there was still a chance for Ben and her to be together. She was planning on pleading with Ben to reconcile.

They sat in the driveway. Emilia didn't know what to say. She needed Heather to drop the charges, but she also wanted Heather and Ben together. Emilia had gotten hold of a police report from the incident. She knew by reading the report that the prosecutor had no case without Heather—despite what she had been telling Josh. Ben had said in the report he wasn't sure if Josh had a gun, so the case relied solely on Heather's testimony. Without her, the prosecutor would have to drop the charges and release Josh.

“He's done so much to me over eleven years,” Heather told Emilia. She was still crying. “He shouldn't be pissed off if he sits in there a little while, because I deserve to have a life, too.”

Not taking sides, Emilia consoled Heather, telling her it was all going to work out. Not to worry. They'd think of something.

Together.

“Can you come and babysit tonight?” Heather asked Emilia.

“Of course ... I miss those babies.”

“Yeah, I need some time to talk to Ben.” Heather was hoping to convince Ben that the relationship was worth reinvesting in, that Ben shouldn't be frightened away by Josh.

“I am so glad I got you, Lily,” Heather said.

Before taking off, Heather mentioned that perhaps Josh should stop calling her, because there was a restraining order in place.

CHAPTER 48

THEY WERE ON
the way to the store: Emilia, James Acome and his buddy. Josh had no idea Emilia was hanging out with these guys, but Emilia had a plan. As they drove, she started blathering on and on about Heather and Josh and how much of a nuisance Heather had become for the two of them. Emilia was reeling.

“I'm getting some money back for taxes,” Emilia said. She was speaking to both men, but addressing James's friend, a guy who knew Heather and James well, and also hung out with them at times and partied. “I'll give you five hundred dollars. You get Heather drunk, lure her to [a place where I am] so I can snap her neck.”
²

James's friend felt that Emilia “was serious,” he later said.

While Josh was in jail, James Acome had moved in with Heather and the kids. Heather had realized Ben was totally not into her anymore. She needed to be with someone. But whether it was Ben or James, this pissed Josh off royally. James wasn't only sleeping with Heather, he was now living with her, spending copious amounts of time around the kids, which infuriated Josh even more.

But after James heard Emilia's offer, he hightailed it over to the house and, according to his friend, moved out of the house and told Heather he wanted nothing to do with either Emilia or Heather. The idea that Emilia wanted them—whether she was joking didn't matter—to get involved in a conspiracy to hurt Heather was something James and his friend wanted nothing to do with.

Emilia started to call everyone that she, Josh and Heather knew. One friend took a call from Emilia soon after she had approached James and his friend. Emilia didn't hold much back.

“I'll pay you five hundred dollars to kill Heather,” Emilia said, according to several sources, including law enforcement. “I would do it myself, you know, but I cannot move the body.”

She had that baby bump, after all. She didn't want to strain herself and hurt the child.

The friend laughed it off and thought Emilia was kidding.

CHAPTER 49

MUCH OF THE
focus surrounding the conversations Emilia and Josh had from January 10 through January 28 centered on Heather continuing to press charges, despite her telling Josh otherwise. If she dropped the case, Josh kept repeating, the state could not hold him longer than ninety days. If that scenario played out, he'd be out in March, just in time for the arrival of his baby.

But Emilia kept telling Josh she was certain that the same woman who had let Josh down, time and time again, was going to push forward with the case. Heather was lying, Emilia explained. She had no intention of ever dropping those charges.

“Yeah . . . she's
going
to,” Josh said.

Emilia became angry.

The next idea Josh had was for Emilia to call the Department of Child Services to report abuse going on inside the house so Heather would have to face a bit of trouble herself. It would all help Josh's cause. If James was still living there (even though they had heard he moved out), then he and Heather would be caught up in a state child abuse investigation.

Emilia went quiet. She was beginning to feel used. She was a bit uneasy about doing everything in her power to get Josh out because she feared Josh would, as he had so many times before, run right back to Heather and the kids. She didn't say it to Josh, but Emilia wondered if she was just the “other woman” for the time being once again, like all those other times Josh needed a woman in his life.

“Listen, Emilia . . . you never have to
ever
worry about me and Heather again . . . ,” Josh said, picking up on Emilia's trepidation. He sounded sincere, selling this very well.

With an obvious unease in her voice, in a nearly inaudible whisper, Emilia said, “I know.... I'm not worried about that.”

They got into a discussion about James Acome's friend and “that thing,” as Emilia put it, she had asked him to do. Emilia told Josh she needed to spend more time with James's friend so she could try and convince him, obviously. But she didn't want to go into too much detail about it over the jail phones.

“Why do you got to spend time with [him]?” Josh wanted to know. He genuinely seemed to be in the dark here about what Emilia was referring to when she said “that thing.” Josh even had a dash of jealousy in his tone.

All she could answer, “I hope you know what I mean when I say ‘spend time.'”

“No, I don't,” Josh responded. He sounded confused.

“It's not in a sexual way. I hope you don't think that. Please don't
ever
think that,” Emilia said with a nervous laugh.

“I don't know. What's going on?”

“Baby, I cannot talk to you over these phones. You know that.”

Josh got loud: “You need to send me some ... damn kind of indication.”

“Well, it's not nothing
dirty.
Geez.”

“Okay,” he said, calming down.

“What you and me had talked about,” Emilia said, pressing on. The sense was that they had broached this topic in the past and Emilia was simply revisiting a prior plan.

“Okay, okay, okay . . . ,” Josh said, as though he had an epiphany—
Oh yeah,
that
thing
—and it had hit him and he suddenly understood what she had been referring to all along.

The ambiguous nature of this conversation went back and forth for a few days as they hashed out plans for something Josh claimed not to be entirely clear on. Emilia kept saying she had his back, and she would take care of everything. All Josh needed to do was the time he had in front of him. Josh indicated on several occasions that he was upset for being kept out of things on the outside, but Emilia stressed the importance of being quiet about her plan because their conversations “could be”—and actually were—“recorded.”